Comment by badpun

In Poland, factories' light installations ran on non-standard voltage, so that, if you stole the lightbulb, it'd be useless in your household. Unfortunately, they couldn't figure out similar solution for toilet paper and many other household items.

As for motivation, beyond the obvious one, people also stole because many items were not available in stores (having a guy who has a connect on toilet paper was a thing back then), and also, since Communism in Poland was actually a Russian dictatorship, the idea was that if you steal from communist factories you're fighting the system and making it fall faster.